What began as a simple journey has turned into so much more...

Session 7: War Stories

You should send some men to get our new catapult...

Our game began with the party standing amidst a circle of ready-to-fire Cormyrean War Wizards, who were rather upset that the party had somehow accessed their ultra-secure teleportation circle in The Hub, the main supply center for the Alliance’s war effort against the orcish hordes on The Line. But before we dealt with that, we had a flashback…

Years earlier, the young privates Nulath & Nicolai were with their Ionian unit, lead by Captain Gilraith Featherin (a half-elf warlord), reporting to The Line. Also in their unit (played by the other folks in the group) were the goliath fighter Avalanche (Mike), the Elven Ranger Hawkeye (Jenn), the Dwarven cleric Unity (Lisa), and the dragonborn sorcerer Boomer (Valarie). The unit found the rotund and sparkly dragonborn General Claw, who told them that there was a bunch of miscreant units from Borovia [home of the Church of Kord and a society that allows criminals to swear a loyalty oath, get branded, and join the military to lessen their sentences], who were being routed on the advance western front, but that they weren’t really worth the effort to save. Featherin wouldn’t hear of it, though, and the squad ran off to the rescue.

While racing across the huge battlefield, the team split up (always a good idea), taking individual control of each of the leaderless units. A massive combat ensued, with special appearances from a gnoll hunter, an Eye of Gruumsh, and catapulted scatter-shot. However, our heroes were victorious, saving every unit, claiming the high ground, and even capturing the catapult.

Their victory was so complete that the War Wizard General, Inara Ducati Du Obarskyr, presented them with medals in an end-of-A-New-Hope kind of big ceremony.

Back in the future… er… I mean, PRESENT, the former Ionian soldiers (now reservists) told the War Wizards that they were friends of Inara. After some confusion and running to check on that claim, said Inara showed up and confirmed that she did, in fact, know Nikolai & Nulath. She told them of the vision one of their seers had experienced about the forces of Vecna trying to take The Hub. The party allayed her fears, saying that they’d defeated the undead servants of Vecna back in Forgehome. Since there was no longer any secretive, imminent undead threat to the Hub, Inara took most of her War Wizards north to the Line, where reports of several new legions of attacking orcs lead Inara to fear for the security of the Line.

That night, as the party was making themselves at home on their military cots in a larger tent, they heard the guards call out into the night “Dead Man Walking”. The cry continued down the line. The party saw a line of 5 large carriages, each driven by stooped, cloaked figures. After some cautious inquiries, they met with a being called TUS (The Unknown Soldier), a revenant who couldn’t remember much of his previous life, other than that he was a soldier who had lead men, and left them behind. As penance, and absent any other direction from whatever god brought him (somewhat) back from death, TUS has been delivering dead soldiers (in what the Church of Kord calls “Shipments of Fallen Valor”). One of his bodies is that of Boomer, an old war friend of Nicolai & Nulath. The party agreed to accompany TUS as guards.

During the night, Art had a troubling dream about walking along the ocean floor. Her dream ended with the lingering memory of one word: Umbria.

After a night’s rest, in the early hours of the morning, the party got up to start preparing to leave. They saw the fishermen of the nearby coastal village Fishermen’s Wharf getting up to make their living in the distance. After a few minutes, though, it was clear that the fishermen weren’t going towards the sea… and it wasn’t a living they were looking to make. The game ended with the party facing off against an undead village and whatever force(s) had put them into that less-than-living state.